MORE STUFF

~~ Little did I know it would come to this. Way back when, upon the release of the 1990 National Jewish Population Study, the organized Jewish community let out a collective shrei upon the revelation that over 50% of marriages involving one Jewish spouse were found to be inter-marriages. Meetings and conference calls were dedicated to the subject of inter-marriage, the system was obsessed with the subject -- and rightfully so. At that time I argued that we should discontinue the National Jewish Population Study on the theory that "no NJPS, no intermarriage." Little did I suspect that almost 30 years later a President of the United States would make almost the same specious argument about COVID-19 testing. I was joking to make a point; President Trump is so serious that he has repeated this idiot theory sometimes daily, many times more often.

I apologize.

~~ What's Next...Bingo? The Jewish Agency for Israel undertook an on-line fund-raiser to support its efforts to assist communities worldwide in the face of the CONVID-19 epidemic. To its credit, the JAFI governance (Board or Executive, I'm not sure which) voted to appropriate $10 million it does not have to provide funding for this effort. Guess that those who made this noble decision thought it was still the year 1990, when the communties actually cared as much as JAFI's own leaders but...never mind. For some reason, the Agency decided to "sell" this fund-raising event to an Israeli retail jewelry operation which offered a 20% kickback to the Agency for every piece of jewelry purchased during or shortly after the television event. It wasn't just the "sponsorship" that surprised me; it was the intrusion into the broadcast of extensive time given to the promotion and the promoter -- more time than provided to the communities to articulate their needs. 

#embarrassing.

~~ Speaking of embarrassing... Reading the columns of Caroline Glick I have come to understand that she constantly proves that she is beyond embarrassment -- never more so than in her piece How Can Israel Help Diaspora Jewry? Therein Glick argues that an Israel Diaspora Ministry effort is doomed to failure because it is premised in part upon tikkun olam which she concludes -- based upon no facts -- is a concept associated with those she most despises -- liberal/progressive/radical (they are all one to Glick) American Jews. Yes, that mantra, at the heart of so much of American Jewish philanthropy, that concept of helping to repair the world, is, to Caroline Glick...evil. Glick has focused so much her most recent venomous excretions on American Jewry and American Jewry's institutions. It has obviously been too many years  that have passed since she lived in Chicago's Hyde Park -- she knows so little of us but has so much to spew about us.

#very embarrassing

Rwexler